Thursday 18 March 2010

Saturday 6 March 2010

Minimum pricing on the demon booze.

One of Don's favorite rants is that of minimum pricing per unit on the demon drink.

Thankfully The Devil's Kitchen has a rather good bit on how the EU has declared minimum pricing to be illegal.
Cigarette price-fixing infringes EU law
The Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled that Irish legislation fixing a minimum retail price for cigarettes infringes EU law.

The legislation here breaches Directive 95/59 which has rules on excise duty affecting the consumption of tobacco products.








It falls to the evil drinks industry to state the obvious:
Gavin Hewitt, chief executive of the Scotch Whisky Association, said: “Given this latest evidence, the Scottish government must now recognise the legal realities. It cannot introduce a trade barrier in breach of the UK’s European obligations by imposing minimum pricing on alcohol in Scotland.”

Best of all was this bit:





And the European Commission has made it pretty clear that it will not tolerate minimum pricing for alcohol:
The Court of Justice of the European Communities (“the Court”) has ruled that national rules fixing retail prices for alcoholic beverages could constitute measures having an equivalent effect to quantitative restrictions on imports contrary to Article 28 EC. This would be the case if, for example, prices were set at such a level that imported products were placed at a disadvantage in relation to identical domestic products.

So do be a good chap Don and fuck the fuck off out of our lives, no one has voted for you to dictate to us on drinks or matters political; or your fake charity Alcohol Concern that is funded by government handout's to spout lies and half truths.


Without taxpayer cash your so called charity would dry up and blow away in the wind like an old dog turd.